I have spent the last 2 weeks getting Kodee used to having collars taken off/put on multiple times a day per Ed's instructions in his DVD. Today we finally attached his leash to his prong to go outside, just for a potty break. OMG - it worked great! Kodee pulled slightly as we were going out the front door, and he gave a little yelp and he didn't pull again at all from then til we came back inside. This is quite a feat as we have a crew of contractors outside of our house building a new deck. Ordinarily he tries to drag me over to them so he can say hi and act a fool.

Anyway - I have a question: I know you are supposed to put the prong on 1/2 hour before you attach leash, and leave it on 1/2 hour after you remove leash. But what if you go out several times throughout the day (Kodee is a house dog - we go out a lot for potty breaks, and he also rides in the car w/us usually at least 1-2 times per day to drop off/pick up kids). So, I wondered if I can leave his prong on throughout the day. Otherwise, it's an hour of "prong time w/no leash" every time we need to go somewhere. So, as long as it doesn't seem uncomfortable to him to have it on, can we leave it on most of the day if we're going to be in and out a lot?

I don't leave collars on unsupervised dogs (choking/strangling) but if I'm with them, they wear prongs for hours at a time. My APBTs tend to scratch at it a bit if it's on longer than normal, but honestly none of the Shepherds have ever seemed to notice they were wearing it. I leave it on Caleb or Xander all day while they're at work with me. Hope that helps.

Thanks, Jenni. What I've been doing (during the 2 week conditioning period) is make sure that he never wears it unattended (in the crate, for example, or if I leave him in the car without me for a little while). I just wanted to make sure that it wouldn't hurt anything to let him wear it for hours, as long as he's not alone.

I'm so excited - Ed's not kidding when he compares it to "power steering." And we've just used it for a potty break so far!

I'm glad someone else got as excited as I did the first time they used a prong. :-) My lab Willow was a pulling fool. I realized by the time I was picking her up off the ground with the flat collar and she was just gasping and still trying to drag me that something needed to change. Choke chain was the same way and I was beginning to wonder if I made an error getting her and decided I'd throw the last hurrah with a prong and it saved her life.